• quinquennial •

Meaning: 1. Occurring once every five years. 2. Lasting five years. 3. (Noun) Fifth anniversary.

Notes: Today's word is a rarity in containing two instances of the cluster QU. Remember that the first one heads a syllable spelled quin and the secondm, quen. Then all you have to do is double up on the Ns and you should have no trouble with this word. It has but one relative used at all frequently, the adverb quinquennially.

In Play: The usual meaning of this word is "every five years": "On his quinquennial visits home, Pierce Dearing found it difficult to find a topic to discuss with his parents." The other meaning, "lasting five years", is less often encountered: "Profits for the past quinquennial period have been lower, but we have high hopes for this one."

Word History: Today's Good Word comes to us, via French, from Latin quinquennialis "five years old, occurring every five years". In Latin this word was a compound consisting of quinque "five" + enn- "year", a variant of annus + an adjective suffix. The Latin word quinque—believe it or not—goes back to the same Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word penkwe- "five" that turned up as pente in Greek (pentagon), fünf in German, pjat' in Russian (from an earlier panti), and five in English. We see the normal change of PIE [p] to Germanic [f] in these words. In Latin, the cluster [kw] (QU) copied itself over the initial [p] to form quenque "five". The Old Germanic word fing-wraz "one in five" ended up as English finger and German Finger. (Now is the time to thank Timothy Knox for suggesting today's Good Word; we hope it will not be a quinquennial occasion.)

If these verbal tidbits weren't enough, there's Nero. "The quinquennial Neronia was a massive Greek-style festival created by the Roman Emperor Nero." In The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, a seminal source of Roman history (which I haven't read!) it is rumored the compulsory ceremony was so long and boring women gave birth, and men faked death to escape.

Last edited by MTC on Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We recently had one protesting/favoring (I cannot keep upwith all of it) the current gov't shut-down. He read hiskids bed time stories among other things which are nowpart of the federal history archive. I don't think theyare mandatory, because no one is ever there exceptthe vultures in the media.

slava, I can imagine wishing someone a happy quinquaginary.I may just save that word and do so.

call_copse wrote:If I ended up in one of your parliamentary? houses and encountered one of your famed filibusterings I'd perhaps give it a shot, if it were compulsory to stick around (which I assume it is not).

Iain, they are called the Houses of Congress. As wags have noted of late, they are the opposite of progress.

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

I was a little shocked then actually Slava until I recalled your meaning of nonce. I did briefly wonder if your houses had been additionally tainted by some kind of child sex scandal. I guess they have not quite gone that far - yet - though.

Is 'parliamentary' not a suitable adjective for Congress however, all else aside? Is there and equivalent sort of adjective?

"In sharp contrast, members of parliament are chosen by political parties, though they get votes from people to get elected. These are people who are expected to toe the party line all the time. This simply means that a member has more individuality in case of congress than in the casse (sic) of a parliament."

Republicans in the U.S. Congress uniformly "towed the party line" by shutting down the government. It was a debacle and a gross disservice to our democracy. Though there was some braying in the ranks about the strategy, in the end Republicans acted as a unit. Cowards and droids, really. Thralls of the Tea Party faction which called the shots over a spineless Speaker.

The adjective for Congress is "congressional;" for Parliament, "parliamentary." After the recent disgusting spectacle in the U.S. Congress, you should be happy the difference exists.

The American government has more checks and balances and then England. Or so it appears to me. The "lower" house represents the populations of different congressional districts. Those were based on population. The "upper" House or Senate represents the states. Each state has exactly 2 senators regardless of its size. Parliament elects the Prime Minister; Congress does not elect the president. And the executive department is separate from the legislative department, and the judicial from both. No one can dissolve Congress, but each legislator serves his full-term. Thus the senate and the house, representing very different parties, were able to keep the other from having its way in the recent recent financial skirmish.

Thanks Perry and MTC. I enjoyed the referenced article. I'd agree that the US appears to have more checks and balances. This would appear to have the effect of smoothing out changes, hence making progress take that little bit longer - perhaps no bad thing when you have a lot more country to sort out.

On the negative side you can obviously get the situation you have just experienced and described. I've read it suggested that this may have been a result of Obama's initial preference to try and negotiate, seen as a weakness perhaps, and that his less compromising approach in this second term is probably a sensible result of his experience knowing he needs to get things done.